There may be no two stars that greater encapsulate the enchantment of classic Hollywood than Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. The pair of actors have been so long celebrated that to wax lyrical about the power they each held in front of the camera is to border on redundancy. Who doesn’t know about the pure magic of two of the greatest screen performers to ever live? And yet the flip side of that coin is that they’re a pair with such indelible depth to their craft and body of work that you could mine endless conversation out of Bogey’s handsomely weathered eyes, or Bacall’s seductive and smoky gaze.
It seems almost too fitting that the two would also go down as Hollywood’s greatest love story, and yet real life garnered a leg up on the movies. Their romance sounds like its own magnificent Hollywood melodrama: The forbidden relationship between two stars that led to on-set drama and industry speculation, caused Bogart to leave his wife, was laced with affairs, and was cut all too short by Bogart’s untimely death in 1957 after 12 years of marriage. During their courtship and the early years of their marriage, they starred in four movies together, each that contributes a different layer of insight to their timeless legacy. They were never in a truly bad film together, but we’ve done our best to rank their run of movies from worst to best. Here’s looking at you, reader. (That’s a different Bogie movie, but you get the idea.)
Here is every Bogart and Bacall movie, ranked:
5. Two Guys From Milwaukee (1946)
“Entry number five?” I hear you ask. “I thought that there were only four Bogart and Bacall movies?” You’re not alone: I did too, until my editor graciously revealed to me this mostly forgotten comedy released the same year as The Big Sleep, which features the power couple in a brief cameo appearance. Two Guys From Milwaukee is notable, however, for how it directly addresses the cultural magnitude of the pair’s status as American icons of the era. Director David Butler’s film is about the Balkan Prince Henry (Dennis Morgan, donning a straight American accent for his character of European royalty) who, during a political visit to America, becomes enamored with the radiance of American prosperity and beauty—which includes his fascination with screen star Lauren Bacall herself, a recurring gag that peppers the fish-out-of-water tale.
Arriving in New York and sick of the stuffy politicking that has encompassed his entire visit to the country thus far, he sneaks away from his professional duties and befriends the unwitting cab driver Buzz Williams (Jack Carson), who shows him the true, open heart of the country. Fitting for its release year, it’s a rather idealized portrait of America that celebrates a romanticized rapport and harmony that comes with being a citizen of a country that prides itself on being a Free Nation. (Prince Henry falls in love with America’s flawless system of democracy! Hooray!) But it’s also just a decently amusing and charming piece of fluffy comedy that will have you engaged more often than you expect, perhaps courtesy of being co-written by I.A.L. Diamond, the screenwriter responsible for some of Billy Wilder’s best films such as The Apartment and Some Like It Hot. For the purposes of this list, Two Guys From Milwaukee has to go last by default as the Bogart and Bacall appearance lasts all of 15 seconds, but it’s a cute button on a movie that sometimes feels like it was made specifically to promote The Big Sleep—a mid-movie comic setpiece involves the characters comically interrupting a packed screening of the film, stumbling in on an iconic scene with conspicuous signage adorning the cinema.
4. Key Largo (1948)
Bogart and Bacall’s final film together is just one of a string of collaborative efforts the former had with director John Huston. Unfortunately, for this list at least, it’s also the one with the most diminishing returns. Key Largo pairs the couple up as hostages at a hotel on the titular Florida Keys island during a raging hurricane, as a small group of off-season occupants are held at the mercy of a crew of gangsters led by Johnny Rocco (Edward G. Robinson), a notorious, exiled criminal hiding out from the cops. Along for the ride is a collection of typically top-notch supporting performers like Lionel Barrymore and Claire Trevor, who won the Supporting Actress Oscar for her role as a former popular nightclub singer, now drunk and abused at the hands of Rocco.
In the context of Bogart and Bacall pictures, this is the one where they share the least amount of screentime and the one that dilutes any romance between their characters down to mere suggestion. For the majority of the runtime, they’re much too busy trying to figure out how to weasel their way out of the hands of Rocco and his goons to share many of those same suggestive moments of flirtation. This chamber thriller is much more of an ensemble piece in general anyway, allowing the entire slew of performers equal opportunity for screentime throughout. In fact, though Bogart is top-billed, if anyone carries away with the film, it’s Robinson—his performance as the ruthless Rocco leaves the most lasting impression among the cast. Still, though this should be a prime opportunity to watch a murderer’s row of great actors thrive off the tension of their situation, Key Largo carries a bit of a lukewarm vibe, never fully giving into the suspense that’s suggested by the set-up. True, the film seems more interested in excavating the deep-set wounds of its characters than relying on surface-level thrills, but even to that end it ends up running a bit dry, never quite capturing the full dramatic scope or depth of the scenario. Still, it’s difficult not to find something to enjoy when Huston is directing some of the best actors of this era, and for a movie shot entirely on sound stages it has an impressive sense of place and some stunning hurricane special effects. The Humphrey Bogart Estate must have agreed—for five years in the 2010s they held a Humphrey Bogart Film Festival in Key Largo. Bring it back!
3. Dark Passage (1947)
Dark Passage was Bogart and Bacall’s third film that they toplined together, released to a public now well-acquainted with their love story and familiar with seeing Bogart’s world-weary handsomeness alongside Bacall’s captivating allure. That may explain why Dark Passage is largely remembered for the fact that you don’t get a good look at the two of them truly together for over an hour into the runtime, despite both being in the entire picture. The film begins with Vincent Parry (Bogart) escaping from the prison where he was serving time for supposedly killing his wife. The camera intentionally obscures Bogart, focusing anywhere else but his face, most notably by way of sustained POV perspective sequences that make up a large portion of the first act. It’s through Bogie’s eyes that we see him get picked up by the sympathetic Irene Jansen (Bacall), as she smuggles Parry into her San Francisco apartment in hiding as the two work to clear his name—or otherwise escape the city.
Though the second true noir the two would star in together after The Big Sleep, writer/director Delmer Daves’ adaptation of David Goodis’ novel of the same name doesn’t have the polished sense of craft as that Howard Hawks film. Nor is it afforded the benefit of having prestigious screenwriters such as William Faulkner, Leigh Brackett, and Jules Furthman on board. Instead, Dark Passage carves out its own eminently entertaining identity by taking on the personality of a paperback thriller, whose cheap thrills and lurid turns are afforded some welcome credibility by a pair of A-list stars elevating some B-movie material. This extends to the gimmick-reliant first hour, as well as the overarching, slightly clunky melodramatic narrative that sees Parry getting facial reconstructive surgery, becoming serendipitously involved with a crook who attempts to blackmail him, and dealing with a spurned former love interest—all the while starting to fall for Jansen. You can’t help but get the feeling that all of these stray pieces shouldn’t quite fit together—and yet they do, as Bogart and Bacall’s typically electric chemistry, as well as some lovely documentation of 1940s San Francisco, helps to pull the loose ends together and make a film that works despite itself.
2. To Have and Have Not (1944)
Howard Hawks’ first collaboration with Bogart and Bacall, and their first film together, is the one that started it all: The two performers’ attraction toward each other transcended any on-screen romance and initiated a concealed behind-the-scenes relationship that eventually led to Bogart divorcing his third wife, Mayo Methot, to marry Bacall. The two remained together until Bogart’s death in 1957, their love affair sparking the fascination of the public in the process and leading to the two co-starring in all the other films on this list—but the ultimate success of their relationship seemed far away from a sure thing in the early stages.
There was the element of scandal that came with Bogart leaving Methot, who was afflicted with health problems, for a woman 25 years his junior. This was accentuated by on-set drama caused by Hawks’ disapproval of their relationship, historically chalked up to his own jealousy. It led to two confrontations: One in which Hawks tried to convince Bacall of Bogart’s hidden ambivalence toward her, followed by a retaliation from Bogart that led to studio heads getting involved after he threatened to leave the production over Hawks’ actions. Production finished out on thin ice with Bogart attempting to reconcile his feelings and maintain his current marriage while not-so-secretly pining for his co-star. That To Have and Have Not came out intact is a marvel, that Hawks would go on to direct Bogie and Bacall once again immediately following the film’s release with The Big Sleep is a miracle.
As for the film itself, Hawks worked with Ernest Hemingway on a script based on Hemingway’s novel of the same name while on a fishing trip, playfully insisting that he could make a great movie out of his worst book. Fittingly, due to a deliberate decision by Hawks and Hemingway, as well as additional work on the screenplay from screenwriter Jules Furthman and revisions from famed novelist William Faulkner to meet the standards of the Production Code, the film only superficially resembles the novel, mostly by way of retaining key characters and the title. Whereas the book takes place over several months in Key West and with a heavy emphasis on bleak socioeconomic commentary, the film relocates events to Martinique over three days, where Bogart’s character Harry “Steve” Morgan serves as the protagonist for a romantic thriller, as he becomes entangled in a fiery affair with Bacall’s Marie “Slim” Browning while getting caught in the middle of French Resistance efforts amid WWII.
Dissenting opinions of To Have and Have Not unfavorably compare it to Casablanca. The similarities are indeed conspicuous: Each features Bogart as an American expatriate finding himself at a crossroads between an impassioned romance and slowly learning to stand up for what’s right while trying to stay apolitical in an exotic locale with rising local tensions. True, it does itself no favors by being a slightly lesser version of one of the greatest screen dramas ever made, but it’s made with Hawks’ usual sturdy hand for spectacle and character work, and Bogart and Bacall bring the familiar beats to life with their explosive chemistry. Bacall’s introduction—asking Bogie for a match in his doorway—may be the single greatest actress debut of all time, immediately embodying her alluring, sultry screen persona. The feverish emotion of their off-screen affair is baked into the bones of the film’s very being, their forbidden romance inextricable from iconic line reads, such as Bacall’s famous, “You know how to whistle, don’t you, Steve? You just put your lips together and…blow.” To Have and Have Not succeeds because real life eclipses fiction to make a film that feels like watching two real people fall helplessly in love.
1. The Big Sleep (1946)
The Big Sleep, director Howard Hawks’ second feature with Bogart, Bacall and Faulkner, is a film that was subject to a litany of bureaucratic meddling at the hands of the Warner Bros. and the Hays Office. Raymond Chandler’s novel was already infamously convoluted, making for an equally labyrinthine film, but then The Big Sleep was forced into delays and reshoots. The delays resulted from Warner Brothers wanting to rush out their backlog of finished war films to ensure their relevance among audiences before WWII came to an official close—The Big Sleep finished production in 1944 but wasn’t released until mid-1946. The reshoots resulted from this interim period when it was decided that the film should capitalize on Bogart and Bacall’s now-highly publicized relationship more explicitly, leading to the studio greenlighting new scenes that played up the real-life heated chemistry between the two at the expense of segments that helped to streamline the confusing plot. By all accounts, it made for a more dynamic and engaging film, as the pre-release version has historically been deemed veritably inferior.
It speaks to the dynamite power of the Bogie-Bacall dynamic that the version that further muddles the coherence of an already impenetrable story became widely known as the more satisfying effort. Even in its base form, the details of this mazy Philip Marlowe noir are obtuse, but regulations of the Hays Code meant the film could only vaguely gesture to important plot points of the novel such as pornography and a homosexual relationship—elements that are nonetheless vital to the film, yet exceedingly difficult to catch for the average viewer. On top of this, The Big Sleep was working off an unfinished script from Faulkner and screenwriters Leigh Brackett and Jules Furthman, all three writers adapting to the ever-shifting production of the film. They, too, were at a remove from some of the book’s specific aspects, at one point enquiring to Chandler about whether a certain character had committed suicide or been murdered and, if the latter, by whom. Chandler couldn’t recall.
Yet, by some unfathomable force of filmmaking virtuosity, The Big Sleep isn’t good despite its haywire production and jumbled story, but because of it. It’s imbued with a sense of frenzied turmoil, creating a uniquely enigmatic quality that heightens Hawks’ stark visualization of Chandler’s prose, the intricate web of deceit and corruption that Marlowe finds himself within, and the restrained fire of Bogart and Bacall’s performances. It’s a film that allows its audience to become as lost and disoriented as its characters, constantly on the verge of danger yet drawn in and seduced by the chemistry of its leads. Sometimes there are more important things a film can offer than a sensible plot, like an extended scene dedicated to cheeky innuendos to bypass the Hays censors all about how bad Bacall wants to fuck Bogart. Or a similarly suggestive sequence between Bogie and a bookshop owner played by Dorothy Malone, a scene with more fired-up sexual tension than all of the movies released in the past decade combined. The Big Sleep navigates and undermines the strict guidelines of its era with the same serpentine design as its story, encouraging you to let go and enjoy the expertly crafted ambiance crossed with the heavily erotic undertones. It’s a great noir in its own right, a perfect vehicle for Bogart and Bacall, and the best work they ever had together.
Trace Sauveur is a writer based in Austin, TX, where he primarily contributes to The Austin Chronicle. He loves David Lynch, John Carpenter, the Fast & Furious movies, and all the same bands he listened to in high school. He is @tracesauveur on Twitter where you can allow his thoughts to contaminate your feed.